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Can't
Tell the Players Without a Score Card

ECO provides this year's IWC meeting delegates with the count: Who's
in and who's out; who's good and who's bad; and who can't make up their
mind.

Member countries
of the IWC expected to join the pro-whaling (Japan) countries:

Iceland is back this year, wanting to "have it all": They want
to join the IWC again, after leaving in a huff, but they will only join
if their fisheries bureaucrats can file a reservation against the moratorium
on commercial whaling.

In 1982, the Icelandic parliament voted to not object to the moratorium.
Therefore, the whaling ban went into effect for Iceland under IWC rules.
Iceland's attempt to rejoin the IWC while attempting to create a new reservation
would make a mockery of international agreements in general and the IWC
in particular.

Why
should IWC member nations object to this scheme? It's a matter of international
law:

Iceland's Formulation of its Reservation is in Violation of International
Law and is Therefore without Legal Effect. Under the Vienna Convention
on the Law of Treaties and decisions of the International Court of Justice,
a reservation must be compatible with the "object and purpose of
the treaty" to be valid. Iceland's attempt to adhere to the Whaling
Convention with a reservation with respect to the moratorium is necessarily
incompatible with the "object and purpose" of the Convention.
This is because the reservation seeks to avoid compliance with a core
obligation of the Convention that the Contracting Governments have previously
determined to be "necessary" to the objects and purposes of
the IWC.

"Iceland's Proposed Reservation was Properly Considered and Rejected
by the IWC. Under applicable international law, a properly formulated
reservation to a treaty that is a constituent instrument of an international
organization requires the acceptance of the competent organ of that organization.
The IWC acted properly in asserting its competency to consider and reject
Iceland's attempted reservation. Moreover, the IWC's decision to reject
Iceland's attempted reservation is consistent with the IWC's past action
on other reservations that would significantly alter a government's obligations
to implement the requirements of the Whaling Convention.

The IWC's Action was Consistent with the Recent Trend Among Governments
to Discourage or Prohibit Reservations to Multilateral Agreements Concerning
Environmental Protection and Resource Management. In recent years, governments
have sought to discourage or prohibit reservations to multilateral agreements
concerning environmental protection and resource management. This trend
reflects a growing consensus among governments on the importance of fairly
and sustainably managing global resources under common agreed upon rules
and commitments.

Acceptance of Iceland's Reservation Would Establish a Dangerous Legal
Precedent that Could Undermine Other Important International Agreements
on the Environment and the Management of Natural Resources. Acceptance
of Iceland's reservation would establish a legal precedent that would
encourage other governments to withdraw from multilateral environmental
agreements and rejoin them with reservations to specific obligations that
have proven difficult to implement. Allowing governments to withdraw from
a treaty and unilaterally select the obligations to which they wish to
subscribe will undermine many existing environmental accords and make
the negotiation of future agreements increasingly difficult.

For these reasons, member countries should continue to oppose Iceland's
efforts to rejoin the Whaling Convention with a reservation to the commercial
whaling moratorium .

La
Cucaracha Returns!

In honor of ECO's most-quotable Japanese whaling official, we are reviving
last year's popular cockroach on our pages. Masayuki Komatsu, the Deputy
Commissioner, two years ago during an Australian radio broadcast declared
that minke whales are the "cockroaches" of the sea, breeding
like insects, and gobbling up all the fish. Delegations are cautioned
that hordes of the voracious whales may pour out of the sea like rampaging
Godzillas! (Fortunately, even Godzilla must follow the new Japan security
rules at IWC.)

Could Japan's whaling industry--as well as blue, right, and humpback
whales--be facing extinction?

Japan's most respected newspaper, the Asahi Shimbun, observed last month
that dramatically falling demand for whale meat could silence the deadly
harpoon guns.

"There are already signs that it is the Japanese themselves, not
foreigners, who are poised to bring the entire whale-eating tradition
to an end," the Asahi reported on 25 April in a story headlined "Changing
Tastes May Sink Whaling Fleet."

"Ultimately, whaling's demise may have little to do with how majestic,
smart or endangered the mammals are, but simple economics. For call it
what you will--traditional food, a delicacy or something-they-ate-when-there-was-nothing-else--a
growing number of Japanese don't want to eat whale meat.

"And if they won't eat it, they won't buy it, and if they won't
buy it, say good-bye to Japanese whaling.

"The popularity of whale meat is plummeting nationwide. Last year,
marine wholesale markets around the country were left holding a surplus
of whale meat for the first time since 1987.

"That the Japanese public would turn up their noses at a product
promoted as a delicacy came as a tremendous shock to the Fisheries Agency
and the Institute of Cetacean Research Whaling.

"Proponents, wedded to the line eating whale meat is part of 'traditional
Japanese food culture,' see their efforts sinking to the bottom of the
sea.

"Red meat from whales harvested during research is distributed to
wholesale markets at fixed prices. Of the 725 tons of meat intended for
sale last year, 220 tons, distributed to major cities including Tokyo
and Osaka, remained unsold.

"Although the institute tried to put on a happy face, saying the
surplus was eventually sold, a major whale meat dealer in Shimonoseki
disagreed. 'Over the last few years, there has been an increasing number
of businesses that simply do not want to deal in whale meat any longer,'
he said."

The Asahi Shimbun noted that Japan's three giant fish-trading companies,
Nippon Suisan, Kyokuyo and Maruha (formerly Taiyo), which once dominated
Japan's whaling industry, have shunned whale meat in recent years.

The Japanese government and the whaling industry have launched a propaganda
blitz to defend whaling.

One of the deceptive claims is that the Japanese people have been dependent
upon whale meat for centuries and that it is vital to the national diet.

But the Japanese government is covering up the truth. In reality, there
was very little whale meat consumption in Japan until after World War
II. A handful of fishing villages historically caught a few whales by
netting or harpooning--or salvaging dead whales--just as fishing villages
did around the world for hundreds and even thousands of years. The few
hundred tons of whale meat produced annually in Japan were only consumed
by locals--there was no refrigeration or transportation to the cities.
Until after World War II, there was no large-scale market for whale meat
in Japan or anywhere else in the world. It was whale oil and whale bone
that drove the hunt in every ocean for centuries.

Indeed, Japan entered large-scale, deep-sea whaling not to feed its people
but to finance its conquest of Manchuria and China. Professor George Small
described Japan's motives for expanded industrial whaling in his landmark
1971 history of whaling, The Blue Whale:

"Japanese pelagic whaling began with the 1934/35 season, and by
1939 operations had expanded to a total of 6 floating-factory expeditions.
During those years several international agreements, designed to prevent
overexploitation of stocks of whales, were reached under the aegis of
the League of Nations. The agreements included standard prohibitions such
as the killing of the nearly extinct Right whales, suckling calves of
all species, and females accompanied by a calf. Japan refused to abide
by any of the agreements. Moreover, Japan refused to participate in the
negotiations leading to the agreements even when for her benefit the North
Pacific, her oldest whaling area, was specifically excluded.

"The reason for the refusal to accept even rudimentary conservation
practices was the urgent demand placed on the Japanese economy by the
country's war in Manchuria and China. All the pelagic fleets sent to the
Antarctic were owned and operated by the Nippon Suisan Kabushiki Kaisha
Company, the main shareholder of which was the Manchurian Heavy Industries
Corporation. This corporation was the principal economic and industrial
arm of the Japanese army in Manchuria. The objective of the Nippon Suisan
Company, as stated in the 1941 Mainichi Yearbook, was the acquisition
of foreign currency and food supplies for the Japanese armed forces."

Tens of thousands of tons of whale oil was sold by Japan in Europe, particularly
to the Anglo-Dutch Unilever Company, which had developed the method of
turning whale oil into edible margarine. Hundreds of millions of dollars
of weapons, mostly from Germany and England, were purchased with the proceeds
from the plunder of the whales.

But what happened to the billions of pounds of whale meat from the carcasses
of tens of thousands of blue, fin, right and humpback whales slaughtered
by the Japanese fleet in the Southern Ocean? Not one pound of it was sent
back to Japan to feed the so-called "need" for whale meat there.
It was all dumped overboard!

Why was this mountain of whale meat ditched at sea after the whale blubber
was stripped off the whales? Because there was no demand for whale meat
in Japan. Indeed, the Japanese fishing industry and farmers won a ban
on whale meat imports from the pelagic whaling fleets, fearing rightfully
that such a deluge of meat would destroy the domestic markets for fish,
beef, pork and poultry.

It was only after World War II when the ruined, destitute nation needed
quick supplies of food that Japan began consuming large quantities of
whale meat. The U.S. occupying force directed Japan to build new whaling
fleets. Japan was to consume the whale meat taken; the U.S. took the whale
oil in return for financing the fleets. By the early 1950s millions of
tons of whale meat were feeding the Japanese people from the whale kill.
The Japanese whaling industry became the largest in the world because
it profited not only from whale meat, but also from whale oil after the
U.S. investment was paid off. Japan led the final destruction of the last
of the great stocks of blue, fin and humpback whales in the Southern Ocean.

The carnage peaked in 1963 with more than 20 nations hunting the giant
marine mammals. The International Whaling Commission, finally taking action,
banned the taking of the most endangered species. By then, Japan had a
strong economy and could afford to buy food overseas. The demand for whale
meat dropped steadily through the 1970s Unfortunately, Japan's whaling
industry evaded the IWC bans by setting up outlaw whaling operations around
the world to hunt down the last hundreds of blue, humpback and right whales
from land stations around the Pacific and with pirate ships roaming the
Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well as the Pacific.

Today Japan is an exceedingly wealthy nation that imports the best foods
from every corner of the world. There is no longer any "need"
for whale meat. Indeed, the whale meat from Japan's outlaw "research"
whaling is a high-priced exotic delicacy. It is less than one hundredth
of one percent of Japanese meat consumption. But the Japanese government
deceitfully claims that whale meat is "vital."

Japan and Norway continue to do a remarkable public dance around the
issue of trading in whale meat and blubber, with both countries alternately
exhorting the value of whales and trade, but balking when details like
quality, toxics, and international treaties get in their way.

According to Asahi Shimbun, the respected Japanese news organization,
Japan wants to import whale meat but "fears the overseas reaction."

Norway's whalers, who openly violate the IWC ban on commercial whaling,
want very badly to sell whale meat in Japan, where prices are far better
than in Norway.

"Unless Japan starts importing whale meat, we are doomed."
said Ulf Ellingsen, president of a Norwegian whaling company. "We
can't afford (to store) it any longer." Ellingsen's company has 500
tons of blubber and meat from whaling.

"We still plan to import it," said a Japanese Fisheries Agency
spokesman, "but we have to consider the international community's
response when making a decision."

However, an official of Japan's powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and
Industry (MITI) stated: "We may not approve imports if anti-whaling
groups fiercely oppose them and subsequent anti-Japan sentiment is likely
to hurt the economy." The Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species (CITES) has banned trade in all whale products.

Meanwhile, consumers and anti-whaling organizations in Japan have petitioned
the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry to block imports of whale
meat from Norway, due to contamination with toxics.

Whale meat and blubber have been found to have very high levels of mercury,
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and other toxic materials. Whales and
dolphins are at the top of the oceanic food chain, so pollutants dangerous
to humans tend to be in higher concentrations in the meat and blubber
of these animals than other sources of protein. Greenpeace Germany reported
blubber from minke whales killed by Norway had an average 3.7 parts per
million of PCBs, exceeding Japan's safety standards of .5 parts per million
for offshore animals.

In humans, PCBs are known to increase cancer rates, including induced
brain, liver and gall bladder cancers. Mercury causes destruction of central
nervous system and brain tissue.

Of 14 samples of small cetacean meat bought in Japanese markets in 1991,
all contained levels of mercury exceeding Japanese permitted levels, and
4 of the 17 showed levels of PCBs which exceeded permitted levels.

Ironically, the whale-eating Faroe Islanders have taken steps to protect
consumers from toxic whale meat: health recommendations include no eating
at all of internal organs, blubber should not be eaten by women who plan
to have children, and whale meat should not be eaten more often than twice
a month. Shamefully, Japan has no such recommendations.

Clearly, health laws in Japan are being violated by the markets that
cater to the government's pushing of contaminated whale and dolphin meat
down the throats of unsuspecting consumers.

Reports from Norway last week indicate that the mountain of toxic whale
blubber will be banned for human consumption in both Norway and Japan.
Even the salmon farmers of Norway have refused to use it for fish food.

The Japanese Fisheries Agency is considering a wonderful new proposal
to "make good use" of the meat of beached whales.

The Fisheries Agency reportedly is putting together panels of experts
to study the possibilities of allowing dead whales, dead by who-knows-what
manner, to be sold in markets for people food.

Whale and dolphin strandings take place frequently along Japan's coast,
but local authorities are now required to dispose of the whales without
human consumption because of health concerns.

However, local authorities have called for the lifting of the ban on
eating beached whales, citing heavy disposal costs. Apparently, disposal
as human food is more cost-effective than disposal in waste dumps.

So, while in Shimonoseki, ECO advises that you not touch that whale meat.
You don't know where it's been--or how it got there!

Last year, Japan announced to the world that, in addition to continuing
to conduct "scientific research" whaling (a thin excuse for
continuing commercial whaling in defiance of the IWC's global moratorium),
the country's whaling fleet would expand the so-called "research"
to killing another 50 Bryde's whales and 10 sperm whales.

This year, Japan has announced plans to kill an additional 50 sei whales,
plus a controversial plan to allow coastal whalers to slaughter an additional
50 minke whales (on top of the whopping 540 minke whales now being slaughtered
in the name of science).

Every year, Japan increases the number of whales they kill, using the
feeble excuse of "science." When is the scientific whale research
program going to end, you say? Try "never."

However, if you are curious about the results of all this "scientific"
whaling, we at ECO urge you to partake in one of the many "blubber
banquets" taking place this year in Shimonoseki. The government is
pushing whale meat consumption.

Even Norway has gotten into the act. Not content with continuing their
commercial whaling in the Atlantic, Norway is now proposing to slaughter
60 white-sided and white-beaked dolphins. Oh yes, we almost forgot--the
dolphin bloodshed is for "science."

Mexico, United States, New Zealand, Australia, Britain, and 13 other
conservation-minded nations have condemned the proposal by Japan to double
the kill of whales for "research" purposes, including the first
take of sei whales in more than 20 years.

"Our governments consider Japan's actions as undermining the authority
of the IWC, and designed to undo the decades of progress that have achieved
the substantial level of protection that whales enjoy today...

"We are concerned that Japan's activities conducted under the 'scientific
research' provisions of the IWC are not supported by the majority of Scientific
Committee and represent a continuously increasing level and range of catches
for what in effect is a unilateral program carried out by a single member
State, without the approval of the majority of the IWC's other members...

"We further deplore the fact that the program includes a take of
up to 50 minke whales for the benefit of small-type coastal whaling communities,
despite the consistent rejection by the IWC in the last thirteen annual
meetings of requests by the Government of Japan for commercial quotas
for these communities in exception to the moratorium on commercial whaling."

Like a beached
whale, the IWC's Revised Management Scheme (RMS) isn't going anywhere.
The RMS Working Group meeting failed miserably to make progress on the
major issues dividing member nations on this framework for possible resumption
of commercial whaling.

Meanwhile, international lawyers for the Humane Society of the US have
outlined a number of fatal flaws in the RMS, which has been in development
since 1994.

It is vital that all international Agreements implement effective international
monitoring, control, surveillance, and enforcement regimes. But the IWC
has limited consideration to amending parts of Chapter V, which were drafted
many years ago and do not take into account numerous developments in international
law, fisheries and wildlife management. By focusing only on issues of
'supervision' and not on issues of enforcement, the IWC is out of step
with developments in international law and will end up agreeing to an
unenforceable management regime.

An effective RMS must incorporate binding procedures and systems for
management of data collection, surveillance of whaling operations and
markets, reporting, investigation, prosecution and punishment of violations.
However, the current draft RMS does not contain any of these basic elements.

To
create an effective "Observation and Inspection" scheme, the
IWC must at a minimum establish the following:

A. An International Observer Program
B. An International Registry System
C. An International Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) D. An International
Genetic Tracking Program

In order to assure effective Compliance and Enforcement, there must be
a transparent and neutral body in place to review alleged infractions
and make recommendations for penalties. There must also be a binding dispute
mechanism in place to address conflict or disagreement amongst the parties
regarding compliance. And finally, there must be penalties of sufficient
gravity to deter noncompliance. These elements are only effective when
all three are present in any management scheme.

No Agreement can be effective if the Parties do not comply with their
obligations. Ensuring compliance in Agreements is particularly difficult
when there is a lack of international enforcement mechanisms and penalties.

However, the proposed RMS contains none of these enforcement and compliance
mechanisms. As such, the Agreement will never provide effective protection
for whales on the high seas. Years of illegal whaling activity should
warn the IWC about the consequences of renewing commercial whaling under
the fatally flawed RMS.

Japan's flagrant buying of votes at the IWC--by recruiting new countries
into the treaty organization with millions of dollars of fisheries aid,
and then sustaining those bought votes with even more millions in succeeding
years--is antagonizing the community of nations and turning the IWC into
a symbol of public ridicule.

With the professed aim of buying enough votes to overturn the IWC ban
on commercial whaling and to block whale sanctuaries and other protections,
Japan has turned the IWC into a disreputable bazaar where poor, often-corruptible
states have put themselves up for sale. And Japan has cynically shoveled
out hundreds of millions of dollars of "tied aid" in return
for pro-whaling votes at the IWC, CITES and other international fora.

The Japanese vice-minister for Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Hiroaki
Kameya, stated that, "we would like to use overseas development aid
as a practical means to promote nations that join, expanding grant aid
towards nonmember countries which support Japan's claim" at the IWC,
reported a British newspaper, The Guardian Weekly, on 18 November 1999
in a story headlined "Japan Admits Aid Link to Votes."

The Japanese press has referred to the scheme as a "vote consolidation
operation" jointly coordinated by Japanese "government and industry
circles together." Tens of millions of dollars have been doled out
annually to developing countries as "grant aid for fisheries."

New Zealand's Minister of Conservation, Sandra Lee, denounced Japan's
vote-buying practices in a scathing speech at last year's IWC meeting:

"My prime minister and government view the proposition of vote-buying
as outrageous and have publicly said so. Taking advantage of the poverty
or vulnerability of developing countries and small island states to buy
their votes can only be regarded as a serious misuse of power and influence
by a wealthy nation.

"I should not need to remind this organization that principle 10
of the United Nations Declaration on Environment and Development calls
on States to, among other things, 'facilitate and encourage public awareness
and participation by making information widely available.'

"For many years, the IWC struggled to justify itself to the outside
world because of its lack of transparency. However, increasing media access,
an expanded observer role for NGOs, and keeping secret ballots to a minimum
has alleviated this problem.

"But all these attempts to increase transparency are made a mockery
if sovereign governments lose the very thing that makes them sovereign--the
right to make their own decisions, without undue influence of other states.

"The 1970 Declaration of International Law Concerning Friendly Relations
and Cooperation Among State, in accordance with the U.N. Charter, stipulates
that: 'No state may use or encourage the use of economic, political or
any other type of measure to coerce another state in order to obtain from
it the subordination of the exercise of its sovereign rights and to secure
from it the advantages of any kind.' "

Stated Minister Lee, who has been fully backed by her Prime Minister
and parliament: "New Zealand fails to see how tied aid or vote buying
promotes good faith, transparency or basic respect for independent governments.
My government believes it is important that the IWC is not perceived as
condoning such strategies that would ultimately see participation by all
but a few affluent nations becoming an exercise in futility.

"It is disappointing that Japan is using such tactics, as we confidently
worked alongside Japan at the United Nations and many other international
fora.

"My government is sincerely disturbed, therefore, by conduct and
comment that argues that such tactics are legitimate and appropriate,"
Ms. Lee concluded.

It is time for the world community to join the principled New Zealanders
by speaking out against this shameful abuse of power by Japan. Nations
that sell their votes to the highest bidder are compromising their integrity,
especially those that have escaped the yoke of colonialism. And international
institutions that serve humanity are degraded by such antidemocratic conduct.

For
20 years, Iceland has agonized over whether it should continue whaling.
In 1982, shortly after the IWC adopted the ban on commercial whaling,
the Icelandic Parliament narrowly voted (28 to 27) to not file an objection
to the ban, which went into effect in 1986.

But in 1987 Iceland unilaterally defied the ban by continuing whaling
under the guise of "scientific research" - a ploy also used
by Japan. That ill-conceived action touched off a massive international
boycott campaign against Icelandic fish, the mainstay of Iceland's economy.

Within months, conservation and animal welfare groups had persuaded McDonald's
and Burger King and other fast-food chains to cancel all orders for Icelandic
cod--a prized, high-quality product used in fish sandwiches. The U.S.
threatened to certify Iceland under the Pelly Amendment, an action that
could have led to an embargo of Icelandic products.

Suddenly, Iceland's fishing industry had lost its largest, most lucrative
markets. The national economy was being crippled. In 1989, the government
capitulated, ending three years of outlaw whaling and saving its critical
fishing industry, which quickly rebounded with renewed fast-food contracts
and even gobbling up sales once made by Norway, which was also under boycott
pressure.

In 1991, Iceland hosted the IWC. Intense frustration over the continuing
whaling ban compelled the government to walk out of the meeting in Reykjavik--and
to declare that it was quitting the IWC in disgust. Ironically, the Icelandic
fishing industry set up a large booth at the meeting and openly voiced
its opposition to any resumption to whaling.

Now, 11 years later, Iceland is launching another assault on the IWC
whaling ban, promising more agonies for the whales -- and Iceland's fishing
industry.